Fluoride affects the quality of your smile. How much fluoride you were exposed to as a child before the eruption of your permanent teeth has had a significant influence on the color and quality of your teeth. Although there appears to be a significant amount of controversy about fluoridation of public water systems, the use of fluoride in cavity prevention continues to be one of the dental industry's greatest achievements. While fluoride can have significant benefits, too much fluoride can also cause problems.
Cavity Prevention
Fluoride helps prevent and even reverse the early stages of tooth decay. When bacteria accumulate on teeth, they create a sticky plaque coating on the surface of the teeth. These bacteria produce acids that dissolve the hard enamel surfaces of teeth, eventually penetrating through the enamel, causing tooth decay or cavities.
Fluoride protects against cavities in two ways. When ingested, fluoride incorporates into the crystal lattice enamel structure of developing permanent teeth in children. Fluoride increases the lattice stability, making the resulting enamel more resistant to bacterial acids and therefore less prone to tooth decay.
In addition, through its interaction with the surface of enamel of already erupted teeth, fluoride inhibits demineralization and promotes remineralization of enamel at the surface of the tooth, further strengthening teeth and increasing cavity resistance.
The optimum level of fluoride in a public water supply is between 0.7 and 1.2 parts fluoride per million parts water, according to Kids Health. The optimal level for daily consumption is estimated to be, on average, 1 mg per day.
Enamel Fluorosis
While fluoride can help create more cavity resistant permanent teeth in children, too much fluoride can cause enamel fluorosis. Enamel fluorosis is a condition that causes discoloration or mottling of the permanent teeth. Most discoloration is very mild and from a health stand-point, not a problem. However, nobody really wants their children to have brown teeth. Therefore, parents need to monitor all the potential sources of fluoride their children are exposed to, to ensure the level is adequate enough to increase cavity protection, but not too high as to cause permanent teeth discoloration--roughly 1 mg per day total, from all sources, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Sources of fluoride include daily fluoride supplements, bottled water, tap water, toothpastes and fluoride rinses. The amount of fluoride in the water used to reconstitute infant formula should particularly be checked.
Fluoride Toxicity
In large quantities, fluoride may be toxic. Acute toxic doses are estimated to be around 8 mg/kg of body weight as a one-time ingestion. However, acute fluoride poisonings have occurred at doses of 0.1 to 0.8 mg/kg of body weight, according to an article by Kenji Akiniwa, published in the journal Fluoride in 1997. Children exposed to such amounts can experience nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, increased salivation or increased thirst. These symptoms typically begin about 30 minutes after ingestion and can last up to 24 hours, often sending them to the emergency room for treatment. Toothpastes, supplements, mouth rinses, and other fluoride-containing products should be kept out of reach of children. Young children should be particularly monitored to prevent swallowing of these products during normal use.
Severe cases of fluoride toxicity can also affect other bones of a child's body, in addition to their teeth. At high doses, bone tissue can develop in places where it is not intended, causing painful growths or microspicules. In extreme cases, excess fluoride can cause skeletal fluorosis, an arthritic bone disease.
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